


On A Winter's Night

by Jocondite (jocondite)



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-09
Updated: 2010-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 09:26:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jocondite/pseuds/Jocondite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She stood looming over him, splendid in white fox fur and staring down at him disapprovingly, her thin red mouth turned down at the corners. "You are strong man!" she snapped. "No sulk! You will go to the ball."</p><p>(Cinderella AU).</p>
            </blockquote>





	On A Winter's Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shoemaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoemaster/gifts).



Johnny didn't let himself get his hopes up about anything anymore. He'd learnt a long time ago that Frank was never going to see him as anything more than a mouthy, unruly child, badly in need of discipline; that Evan was always going to be the petted and feted golden boy, without possessing a thought in his thick wooden head; that Paris would sneak him bread and cakes when he was sent to bed without supper and let Johnny sprawl on his bed and talk about fashion when no one was watching, but that as soon as Frank or Evan took notice, he'd pretend Johnny didn't exist. Johnny had never minded having to clean up after his stepfather and stepbrothers - actually, most of the time, he found it kind of soothing - but he didn't like being _ordered_ , and he didn't like it when Evan snapped his fingers or called him Tinkerbelle, and sometimes he just wanted to be able to have a normal life, like other boys did.

When he heard about the midwinter ball being held at the palace for the young prince, Johnny wanted to go, more than anything, but he never expected that he'd be allowed. An invitation had arrived at the house, engraved and sealed with red wax, and he'd looked at it and known it didn't include him even when he brought it in to the drawing room on the salver and Frank had cracked the seal, pursed his lips meditatively, and said " _Every_ eligible young person is to meet the prince, hmm? Holding a ball on the ice seems a little newfangled, but if the young fellow thinks he's an original, we can work with that. Evan, your new costume with the feathers will do, I think, but I want to see you in the grey one as well, we'll think our strategy over." He'd handed Johnny back the salver and the paperknife without even looking at him, as though he was a part of the furniture, and Johnny had known that far from even not being allowed, he wasn't even _considered._

"You should come," Paris whispered later, when they were upstairs and pawing through Paris's closet, trying to figure out what he was going to wear. "It says every eligible young person, right? You're eligible as fuck."

"Have you even seen my skates?" Johnny asked lightly. They were ancient and battered and didn't fit very well, a hand-me-down from Evan or Paris years ago. The blades were blunt and notched, and it was hard to skate more than a few feet in them without falling over. "The prince would totally be impressed when I fell on my ass, right? Plus, I so don't have anything to wear."

Paris looked at his wardrobe, the heaping pile of 'no's and 'maybes' that he'd already discarded in his search for the perfect princebait outfit. He hesitated visibly, gnawing at his lip. "I'd lend you something, but you know Frank, he'd bitch, and then I wouldn't be able to go, either."

"It's fine," Johnny said, looking away. "It's not like I'm allowed to go, anyway."

"Maybe you could, like, make something," Paris suggested, before he got distracted by a sparkly pink tunic he kind of liked, but was also kind of worried might clash with his hair, which was kind of gingery, as much as he denied it. He wasn't serious about the suggestion, just offering it offhand like a scrap tossed to a dog, but it struck Johnny with the force of a sudden revelation.

He could make something; he could go to the ball. He didn't even care about meeting the prince, he just wanted to go and have some fun like a normal person, one who hadn't been kept in the scullery cleaning and cooking and mending since he was twelve years old.

Frank had never stinted Evan anything he wanted, and Evan had grown dramatically taller over the past handful of years - grown and grown and grown, out of all sorts of outfits that Paris was too discerning to wear as hand-me-downs but that were still too fine for Frank to pass along to Johnny, because what was Johnny going to do with them, wear them scrubbing the floors? They were packed away in a chest in the attic, and it wasn't like Johnny would actually wear any of them himself as they were, because, like Paris, and unlike Evan, he actually had taste, but he could definitely do something with the raw materials.

He sewed away at night instead of sleeping, unpicking tasteless net here, adding tasteful spangling there. On the night of the ball, when the carriage drew up, he hurried downstairs just as Frank was casting a critical eye over Evan and Paris.

Johnny could see them standing stiffly in front of the waiting coach in their sparkling ensembles, waiting for Frank's seal of approval before climbing in. Frank nodded offhandedly at Paris and spent longer taking in Evan, from his dark, black-stockinged feet up to the dark, black expanse of his chest, sparkling with pieces of jet, and finally the dark, black hair slicked neatly behind his ears. A dark, black bird had given its life for plumage decorating Evan's wrists and collar. He looked like an enormous awkward crow, a harbinger of ill-omen.

"Wonderful, Evan, you're the best," Frank said gruffly. "Be swift and striking, like the snake. The goal is within your grasp."

Johnny picked up his patched old skates - there was nothing much to be done about them, although he'd polished them carefully and given them new laces - straightened his back and tossed back his curls and made himself step forward out of his place of concealment. Evan was still nodding manfully when Johnny walked through the front door and down the steep steps to the paved front garden where the carriage was waiting.

The late afternoon sunlight made his white one-piece glow brilliantly, picking out the gold highlights of his costume and the heavy ruffle he'd added to one shoulder, like a single wing. He put one hand on his hip, and waited.

"You look _fabulous_ ," Paris breathed, the first one to notice.

It got very dramatic after that. When Johnny squared his shoulders and announced his intention of attending the ice ball, Evan laughed and then caught himself, like he wasn't sure laughing was allowed. Frank snorted, like it was a joke, and when he realised Johnny was in deadly earnest, his lips pursed alarmingly.

Blah blah blah, a disgrace to his reputation, blah blah blah, trying to ruin Evan's chances, blah blah blah, Frank was responsible for feeding and clothing him, and he was repaid by this ingratitude? In fact, even the concoction Johnny was wearing was of Frank's providing, blah blah - and then he took a closer look at it, turned puce, and ripped off the floppy ruffle.

The neckline tore, too, across the back of his arms. "You asshole," Johnny hissed, but his eyes were filling up with stupid tears he couldn't help. They were more than half pure rage, but Frank looked at him like he was dirt and climbed into the coach. Evan followed suit, looking particularly wooden, and Paris hovered by the steps, looking conflicted.

"I can't miss this," he said in a rush. "It's the event of the season, and the prince is meant to be, like, stupidly hot. I'll totally miss you," he added, and though it came out sounding insincere Johnny knew Paris actually meant it, because his mouth was slanted sideways all unhappily, like it had been set in his face a quarter-turn too far to the left to match the rest of his features. "Time to go," he said, and blew Johnny a kiss.

When the carriage turned past the front gates and disappeared into the distance, there was no one left to see him. Johnny fell to his knees, his face pressed into in his hands and his new costume hanging in white-and-gold rags from his shoulders. The ground was hard and cold and unforgiving, the last snowfall still lingering in the shadowy parts of the garden and along the edges of the roof. All the trees were bare and leafless, encrusted with hoarfrost and casting witchier and witchier shadows as the sun went down, the last sliver of it striking sparks from the frozen lake.

Johnny was so focused on his wrongs he didn't notice the clear, hard light that began to touch the winter garden, turning the frost into something lambent and alive. When he looked up, he was still blinded by tears, and the light was a painful blur that finally resolved itself into a very cross-looking woman when he blinked.

She stood looming over him, splendid in white fox fur and staring down at him disapprovingly, her thin red mouth turned down at the corners. "You are strong man!" she snapped. "No sulk! You will go to the ball."

"What are you talking about? I look like a fashion victim," Johnny protested, hiccupping. He wiped the back of his hand roughly over his eyes and skipped over the 'who are you?'s to the important point. "Literally. I can't go like this."

The woman huffed through her nose, an impatient sound like a bull might make, pawing the ground, just before it charged. "No mind that," she ordered. "You go, you will look handsome, you will make prince fall madly in love."

She shook her finger at him and Johnny flinched away. He was about to tell her she was a crazy lady and she should leave him alone, but everything had blurred again, and when his vision had cleared, the rags of his desecrated costume were gone.

He was wearing a beautiful onesie in a myriad shades of blue, glittering here and there with silver sequins and tiny crystals. His old, patched skates were gone, and in their place was a pair that fit him perfectly, black and glossy, their blades shining. He raised his arms above his head, marvelling at the lace dripping off his sleeves like sea foam.

"This is gorgeous," he said breathlessly, letting the metaphysics of it slide. "Can I have more sequins? It's great, but I think it needs more sparkle."

The woman's frown deepened. "Nyet, must look strong." She nodded towards the frozen lake. "Try to skate."

"Are you kidding? I'll totally fall on my ass," Johnny protested, but she bent her head again, inorexable.

He picked his way carefully over the frozen ground until he was standing on the edge of the lake. When she nodded, he consigned his life into the Unknown's hands, mentally promised Paris his few worldly possessions, and struck out.

It was like he was flying, or like someone else was skating for him, guiding his feet. He moved effortlessly, cutting a sparkling pirouette on the ice, and another, and when he jumped he got enough height to spin in the air several times before landing again, and laughed with the joy of it, of being that good, without even trying.

The woman nodded in satisfaction, pulling her furs tighter. "You fly now," she said. "You will turn back into Johnnik when it is time. As long as you stay on the ice, all is well, but you must be back on ground by midnight, to fly home. Understand?"

"Fly?" Johnny asked, and then he said "Wait, _midnight_?" because that was the more important concern.

"Is for own good," she said. "Jump."

Johnny frowned, ready to argue the midnight thing again, but her frown was prohibitive and he wasn't brave enough to argue over points _or_ sparkle with her, so he cut another couple of circles in the ice, building up speed, and then he jumped.

This time he didn't come down. He could see the woman nodding, a small, exact inclination of her head, indicating satisfaction measured out to the last nth, but she was small and far away now. He felt very calm about it, actually; at the corners of his vision he could see the stretch of pale wings, but he wasn't interested in anything but following the long line of the lake and the road cutting through the dead trees. It didn't leave much room for freaking out.

He followed the ribbon of road until the distant bulk of the Winter Palace loomed in the distance, and the frozen lake in front of it was brilliant with fireworks and lanterns and people in bright, glorious costumes, and far-off music that sounded strange to his ears.

Johnny swooped down low, under the cover of the skeleton trees, and felt himself shift again as he came to land. He landed smoothly on the blades of his new skates, as if he'd just left the ground a moment ago. (He was not freaking out. He was _not_ ). The party was still some leagues distant, but this part Johnny had to do himself, and he skated out over the ice until, at last, he arrived at the edges of the winter ball, the older people ringed in a thick, thronging circle around the dancers.

"Where's your invitation?" a grumpy-looking man asked as Johnny pushed his way through. The lantern-light shone off his bald head. "Hey -"

"Invitation? He's young and eligible, can't you see that? Go ahead, young gentleman," a lady said, tossing her dark hair, and smiled.

"I am _so_ eligible," Johnny agreed, and smiled dazzlingly at her, just before someone swept past him and pulled him into the dance.

He danced for a while, skimming smoothly over the ice with his silver skates, as part of a wider group and in pairs, just having fun and glorying in the lights and the music and the shiny, attractive people smiling and laughing and flirting. Then he caught sight of a black, light-sucking mass, hovering on the edges of one of the whirling circles like a splotch of ink against the ice.

Evan was tormenting some poor young man, looming over him and talking with every indication of pressing earnestness. Johnny knew that listening to Evan when he was being earnest was like having long-shanked nails hammered into your ear canals, and the guy was shifting around a little, like he was hoping someone would pull him away from Evan and back into the dance.

Johnny toyed with the idea of cutting in for a second - just long enough to rationally consider all the hell he'd catch for it, weigh it up against the fleeting enjoyment he'd get from publicly embarrassing Evan, and then decide to give in to the puckish impulse anyway.

"And the family estate borders - _what_?" Evan snapped when Johnny tapped on his shoulder, turning away from his prey to confront him. Johnny smiled his brightest smile and waited for the explosion.

Evan frowned down at him with a curious sort of blankness, his eyes sliding over his face and down, and really, Johnny knew Evan was as dumb as rocks and that he barely acknowledged Johnny as anything more than an ambulatory mop-cum-cloak stand-cum-tea tray, but this show of bewilderment was just insulting.

"I'm cutting in," he said, and Evan's hapless victim beamed at him over Evan's shoulder.

"Perhaps we will talk later," the young man promised, patting Evan's arm, and then he grabbed hold of Johnny's hand and let Johnny whirl them away. They left Evan standing by himself in a clear patch of ice, looking like he was still trying to figure out what had happened.

"Thank you," the young man said fervently when they got clear, squeezing Johnny's fingers. He was extremely handsome, Johnny decided, getting his first clear look at him; he had merry dark eyes and soft gleaming hair like a raven's wing, and his smile was broad and blindingly wide. "You saved me!"

"I couldn't leave anyone to Evan's tender mercies," Johnny said, trying to sound casual, and did not, did _not_ jump when the handsome stranger wound his arm around his waist and steered him expertly through several complicated pieces of serpentine footwork.

"He is a friend?"

"Really, really not."

"Ah, that is good," the handsome young man said cheerfully. "If he was your friend, I would have to, um, to mind my tongue, but your face tells me you are not fond of our orange acquaintance, so instead I can tell you that he stepped on my foot."

They broke apart, cutting figure eight patterns into the ice, and Johnny watched him execute a neat flip with an air of absolute carelessness that made him a little breathless. "With his _skate_?" he asked when the music brought them back together.

"Oh yes," the handsome young man whispered confidentially, and lifted Johnny by his waist and swept him around in a circle. "I do not know how he managed this, but he did. I think perhaps he was trying to play, um, the tall, dark stranger? The masterful man? But not very well."

Johnny felt his face contort helplessly at the thought of Evan trying to be romantic. "Ew, I don't want to even imagine it."

"We will stop talking about it," the handsome young man agreed, his face screwing up in echo. "I will, um, thank you one more time for being my saviour, and then I will lift you again, and this time you will jump, so. It is a shame I am taller than you, because I like being lifted, too, but I will not mind."

"You're heavier than me too," Johnny pointed out.

"That is not a very romantic thing to point out, my friend."

Johnny opened his mouth - to query the 'romantic?', maybe - but then the young man said "Ready?", tightened his arm around Johnny's waist, and lifted him off his feet again with a coiling of muscle Johnny could _feel._ He was in the air, and he spun once, and then twice, and then he realised there was still time to spin a few more times before he came down, just like when he had been trying out the skates on the lake at home. He landed on one foot, with the barest flex of his knees at the impact, and held his arms out wide for appreciation.

"That was - you are _fantastique_ ," the handsome young man said, his hands pressed over his mouth, and then he threw himself forward into Johnny's open arms. His chest thumped flat against Johnny's, and he started squeezing him in what appeared to be passionate delight.

"Careful, I'm delicate," Johnny said. His voice sounded vaguely choked, but that was undoubtedly due to the fact that he was sure the guy was going to pop one of his ribs for him, any second, and it had nothing to do with how solid and excellent he felt in Johnny's arms, or the softness of his hair against Johnny's cheek.

"So I feel," the handsome young man agreed, right by his ear. The enthusiasm of his embrace lessened a little, but he didn't step back, just lifted his head to stare very directly at Johnny, very close. "You are also very talented. Are you going to tell me all about your estates?"

Johnny had no idea what had happened to his estates. There had been family land once, a long time ago, but there had also been mismanagement and debts, and it'd been gone long before Frank became his stepfather. "How about not? That sounds very boring."

It seemed to be the right answer, because the young man smiled. His dark eyes were like the best, bitterest chocolate. "Yes," he agreed simply. "It gets very boring. We will just skate, and some other things perhaps, and not talk."

So they didn't. They skated in circles and spirals and twisting figures of eight, and attempted a few more throws and lifts whenever that started getting boring. Johnny wasn't wearing gloves; his fingers should have been cold, but the young man's hands were very warm, and holding his.

The tip of his nose was chill, though, and nuzzling at Johnny's cheek. "Stop it, that's cold," Johnny protested insincerely.

"You _lahhhke_ it," the young man said, sounding very certain. He nuzzled some more, and Johnny made little protesting noises but didn't pull away. "See?"

It was undeniably true, so Johnny decided to change the subject to something he could actually win. "I thought we weren't meant to be talking?"

The young man raised his eyebrows. "You are right," he said, and then he leaned down. His mouth was warm, too, soft and careful. Johnny shut his eyes and let himself be kissed, and then he opened his mouth a fraction and then fraction more, and it got better and better and significantly less careful.

When the handsome young man finally pulled away, Johnny smiled stupidly at him, without any of the conscious will smiles usually took. "Oh," he started, and then the clock tower on the tallest tower of the palace began to strike. They had drifted far away from the palace shore and from the party, but the sound carried ominously, deep low notes that jarred him out of whatever floaty headspace he was in. " _Oh._ Oh shit, I have to go."

The young man smiled down at him, like it was a particularly charming jest. He was still holding Johnny's hands. "Go? Go where?"

"Home!" Johnny remembered the strange woman's down-turned mouth, thin and stern, and her lifted chin, and knew he couldn't risk staying even another second. He tried to pull away, but the young man wasn't letting go, his smiling eyes all creased at the corners.

"Where is home?"

"Over that way - not the point!" Johnny hissed, jerking his head across the lake, then catching himself. Now was not a time for small talk. "I _really_ have to go."

With a final, vicious tug that sent both himself and his ensnaring stumbling in different directions, he managed to reclaim his hands and struck out across the ice in long, slashing strides, the heavy chime of the clock ringing out, resonant and thrumming through to his bones. The edge of the lake was yards and yards away, but getting closer.

He could hear the young man calling after him, and risked a hurried glance over his shoulder. The young man was following, or trying to; he was fast, but Johnny was faster and in imminent danger of sprouting feathers, and the terrible clock just kept striking, slow and sonorous.

The lace on one skate was coming untied, but he couldn't risk stopping to tie it up. The lakeside was getting nearer and nearer, the young man's shouting was getting more distant, and Johnny was intent on nothing else but closing the distance when his left skate found a rut in the ice and caught. He fell jarringly, hard on his hip and the side of his thigh, but he didn't have time to think about how badly he hurt, he had two more strikes left and the shore was _just there_ -

Johnny lurched forward on his hands and knees, and his foot came out of his unlaced skate, the blade still stuck in the ice. The clock struck again, and with a final panicked glance over his shoulder, Johnny threw himself off the lake and into the cover of the trees in an undignified scramble, his eyes screwed up against the pain and in anticipation of another hard landing that didn't come.

He burst through the trees in blind, frantic flight, a long smooth curve of motion that followed so naturally that he didn't notice the exact moment of change.

-

Johnny wasn't prepared for the unevenness of the landing when he came down, and wobbled on his bare foot, the impact knocking him to his knees. For a moment he was worried about ruining the beautiful blue costume, but it was already gone; he was back in the shredded costume he'd made himself, with only the missing skate and the bone-deep aches in his knees and side to show that he'd been gone at all.

He probably had plenty of time before the others get home, but he made himself get to his feet and walk into the house, slowly and carefully. Before he went to bed, he wrapped the torn white-and-gold rags around the single shining skate, somehow still gleaming and perfect, and hid them up the flue of the small fireplace in his room. It wasn't like he was allowed to have a fire in his bedroom, anyway.

-

He woke up a little before dawn. Someone was bent over him, and shaking his shoulder.

"Johnny," Paris whispered, bouncing up and down a little against the mattress. "You have to hear this, oh my god."

" _Go away._ "

"No, come on," Paris said, more urgently, and shook him again. "Guess what - no, you'll never guess, I'll tell you, there was this guy, at the skating party - I mean, I know we're meant to call it an ice ball, but that's so affected, don't you think? It was really just a glorified skating party - okay, off track. Where was I? This guy, no one can remember what he looked like, but oh my god, the prince danced with him for like an _hour_ and glared at anyone who looked like they might cut in, and they did all these fancy moves, and everyone else was totally crushed. It was amazing."

Johnny hadn't noticed the prince or the drama. "Mmm."

"That's not even the best part!" Paris bounced gleefully. "He left! Not the prince, the guy. One minute they were all grindy and then the guy just took off, like the prince had taken inappropriate royal liberties or something. Which is so stupid, because it's not like the prince couldn't _droit de seigneur_ whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted, all night long, you know?"

"Mmm," Johnny said, but he was much, much more awake and trying to make his sleepy brain do urgent sums.

"I don’t think anyone's ever run away from him before. I mean, why would they? He's totally jumpable. Someone said there were tear-tracks on his cheeks, but that could just be a vicious lie." Paris bounced again, like this thought pleased him, then sighed, which confirmed that it did.

Johnny was very glad for the inky darkness. He didn't want to imagine what his face looked like now, and luckily Paris didn't wait for a response. Johnny let him talk about the ball, and the people he'd met, and who had been wearing what, and the dance partners he'd had, thinking frantically. Eventually Paris's train of thought circled back to the prince.

"No one can remember what he looks like," Paris said. "Maybe everyone was looking at the prince instead, I don't know. I don't remember anything but the sparkle, but you just _know_ he was hot hot hot, to hook Prince Stéphane like that. I just don't get why he threw him back."

Johnny felt his face contort in horror. "Ew," he said faintly, and when Paris made a questioning noise, he said "I don't know. Go away, I need my beauty sleep."

-

Johnny got up for real what felt like minutes but was probably an hour or two later, wincing at the stiffening bruises and the pain in his hip, and had the house opened up and breakfast mostly ready before any of the others had started stirring. He did have to give credit; even Paris had made it downstairs and into the front parlour by luncheon, which was a little fraught. Frank was sour, Paris was humming to himself - it was almost exactly usual, except for the strange assessing look Evan gave him when Johnny moved to stand at his elbow to pour the tea, like he was actually seeing Johnny for once and was trying to figure something out. He was so freaked out he spilled a little tea on Evan's forearm, mostly by accident.

"Ouch."

"Sorry," Johnny lied, and patted at Evan's arm with a cloth. He wasn't very gentle about that, either.

Evan glared at him. " _Ouch_." It was a familiar glare, one that said 'you are incompetent and subhuman', and it made Johnny feel a lot better.

"Enough roughhousing," Frank said, looking up from his plate. "Johnny, make yourself useful and- "

There was a sounding noise, like someone was knocking.

" - and answer the door," he finished.

Johnny laid down the tea tray and went to answer the door. it wasn't one of the side entrances, but the formal entrance into the front hall, which was hardly ever used except on the rare occasions Frank opened the house up for company. Standing on the steps was a small, well-dressed woman, her dark hair cut into a gleaming pageboy bob, looking rather impatient. Beyond her was a coach and pair, and a flustered looking groom.

"Hello," the woman said, rather abruptly. "I need to know if there are young men in this house, and whether they attended the skating party Prince Stéphane held last night."

"Um," Johnny said. "Come in." He held one of the heavy double doors ajar and bowed her in, and made a confused face at the groom when she had swept past him.

"Do you require my presence, Lady Shizuka?" the groom called out, placing just the slightest emphasis on the last two words, and _shit_. Johnny wasn't totally oblivious to the doings of the good and the great - it was hard not to pick up on stuff, if you listened to Paris with even half an ear, and Johnny was generally delighted to put both of his ears at Paris's convenience when it came to gossip. Lady Shizuka was a friend of the prince's, sweet and friendly but secretly rumoured to be deadly with a fan and a rapier both, and way, way too well born to be paying calls on rusticated gentry at all, let alone without an attendant, and in what appeared to be a tearing hurry.

She shook her head. "Hold the horses," she said. "I do not imagine this will take long."

Johnny was dying to ask what, but he held his tongue until he'd shown her into the parlour. When he announced her, he had the rewarding experience of watching Paris choke on his cake, and Frank sit bolt upright, one hand rising to smooth at his cravat. Evan, unsurprisingly, just sat there like a block.

"My lady," Frank said oleaginously. "To what do we owe the honour-"

Shizuka ignored him, her eyes running over Evan and then Paris. "There was a young man who left early last night," she said. "The prince liked him very much, and he is most unhappy. Stéphane is not a very clear thinker, so he is in despair, but I hear that the young man, he lives in this direction, and I think I can find him and bring him back, to explain. There are not many people living out here, and I have been to three houses today. You are the last." She sighed. "I do not think it's very likely, but it would help me if you would both try on the skate the young man left behind. No one has been able to tell me what he looks like."

"Well, well," Frank said, rubbing his hands together and sounding horribly jovial. "Well, well, well. Let's try it on, boys." His face fell a little when she took the skate out of her satchel, brisk and businesslike, and set it on the table amongst the bone china.

It was small and neat and black, and still the prettiest thing Johnny had ever seen. Almost, he corrected himself, remembering Prince Stéphane's gleeful face when Johnny had swept him away from Evan. The idea of Evan shoving his big clodhopping flipper into Johnny's little skate was painfully ludicrous, but he tightened his grip on the tea tray and promised himself it would be funny enough to offset his offended sensibility.

Evan looked dubiously at the skate, and at his own feet. "Uh- "

"Come on," Frank said impatiently. "Stick it in, boy. Give it your best shot."

Evan untied the laces with his usual dutiful obedience, but paused again with his foot poised on the threshold of entrance.

"I don't think -"

"Give it a hundred and fifty percent," Frank urged. "Come on, Evan. Be the tiger!" He clawed his hands and made a growling noise of encouragement that Johnny found frankly disturbing. Evan attempted to stick it in, but the laws of physics were clearly leagued against him.

"I can't," he said finally, and pulled it off. "It's not going to fit."

"I didn't raise you to be a quitter," Frank said, sounding disgusted, but then his gaze fell upon Paris, sitting on one of the frail-looking armchairs with one leg crossed over the other, drinking tea with his little finger stuck out and patently enjoying the show.

"What? Oh, no," Paris said. "Not me, it's so not going to fit, and then my self-esteem will be, like, really bad, and I'll try to go on a diet for reducing your foot size, and when it doesn't work I'll get all depressed about my big ugly feet. So just, no."

"Johnny should try it," Evan said, into the space of silence left empty as Frank began to swell with ire.

"You know my _name_?" Johnny asked, only half-joking. Shizuka was looking at him speculatively, like he might make a good consolation present to carry back to the prince if she couldn't find and kidnap the correct man. "Um, I don't think that would be a good idea."

The prince wouldn't want anything to do with a glorified scullery maid. It was better to let him remember Johnny looking particularly attractive in his beautiful costume, not all gross and menial.

"I know you weren't there, but you should still try it on," Paris said, siding with Evan for probably the first time Johnny could recall. "Just for, like, the hell of it."

"Like hell," Frank said, finding his voice. "You're all wasting Lady Shizuka's time. She doesn't need to be bothered by this -"

"Whatever, I'll try it," Johnny said, with a burst of the perversity that made him do stupid things sometimes just to piss people off. "Give it here."

His feet were used to wear and hard work and they weren't going to win any prizes, but they were small-boned and neat and he could walk with them, so what did it even matter that they were hideously ugly and the prince would be horrified if he saw them?

It fit, of course.

"It fits," Paris said, stating the obvious. He clapped silently.

"But he wasn't there," Frank said, trying to gloss over Johnny's embarrassing existence as quickly as possible, just in case someone like the lady Shizuka might make the mistake of acknowledging him as an actual human being. "He's only a servant. Go back into the kitchen, boy, and take this nonsense with you."

The edge of the tea tray struck Johnny in the diaphragm. He really, really didn't like being ordered around. A simple 'please' wouldn't kill the old buzzard -

"Well? Go."

"Fuck you," Johnny said, and threw the tray at him.

-

After that it was all horribly easy. He showed Lady Shizuka the other skate, Paris gasped and said 'Oh my god!' a lot, and Evan held out his hand stiffly and congratulated him in the flattest tone Johnny had ever heard him manage yet. Frank just sat there turning odd colours, tea splotched all over his pale shirtfront and broken shards of crockery rolling out of his lap and onto the floor, and that was the most satisfying part of all, except for how Johnny wasn't really satisfied.

"I don't know why you're all so excited," he said crankily. "I haven't won a medal or anything. The prince probably just wants to bitch me out for ditching him. It was a dick move, I'm a dick, and anyway, I don't have any estates. I'm not exactly eligible princebait."

"Stéphane says you have a quad." Shizuka raised her eyebrows. "He finds that much more interesting than estates."

"It was the skates. They're magic, or something. I can barely manage a single axel normally."

"That's because your normal skates are crap," Paris put in.

"Thank you, I know that," Johnny said, annoyed. "Everything I own is crap. Not that I own much. I'm like, a beggar, the prince would be embarrassed to even know me- "

"He also talked at length about your eyelashes," Shizuka continued. "Something about the beat of tiny angel wings whenever you blinked, and the sleekness of your physique, and his desire to be a glimmering sequin upon your arm." She paused, looking fond but confused. "The things Stéphane says do not make much sense to me sometimes."

"...oh," Johnny said. It came out breathily.

Vanity was his besetting weakness, and he _knew_ it was a weakness, but the idea of the prince lying on his stomach with his ankles crossed telling his best friend all about Johnny's pretty eyelashes definitely did it for him. His eyelashes were all his own.

After that, and with an eye to avoiding Frank's temper when he finally processed what the fuck had just happened, Johnny let Shizuka talk him into coming back to the palace to have supper with the prince. He gave in after approximately eleven minutes, which was really kind of embarrassingly easy ("So jealous," Paris mouthed, his smile level and real). Everything else was easy, too, until they arrived. Shizuka said "Wait here, I will go and dig him out of his wallowing," and disappeared. Johnny was left standing in an echoing corridor feeling grimy and superfluous amongst all the dignified velvet drapes and lofted ceilings, and then he heard totally undignified footsteps coming fast down a small staircase, and his handsome young man was standing there, his hands on his hips.

"So!"

He looked amazing. The formal brown doublet of last night had been exchanged for simple black, and his beautiful raven hair was tousled, and his skin was the colour of pale honey in the candlelight.

"Um," Johnny said, and looked down, because this wasn't just a handsome stranger, this was _Prince Stéphane_ , and Johnny didn't know what to say. He was violently regretting letting himself be flattered into coming, feeling miserable about his shabby clothes, and sure the prince was having exactly the same startled misgivings in reverse. "Your friend thought - god, this is the stupidest fucking idea, I don't know what I'm doing here."

"Having supper with me," the prince said, tilting his head a little. "Or perhaps you are going to run away again?"

"Whichever works for you."

"Supper," the prince said decisively, and held out his elbow. After a second of staring at it blankly (it was an elbow! What the fuck was he supposed to do with it?), Johnny gathered that he was expected to take hold of it. He hooked his hand through the prince's arm, and tried not to imagine that he could feel the prince's body warmth through his sleeve, because he probably couldn’t.

Prince Stéphane smiled at him, sideways, and Johnny smiled warily back.

They had supper in a little antechamber that was much less intimidating than one of the giant rooms Johnny knew the palace had in multitudes, and it was nice, almost intimate. Literally intimate, actually, when the prince started rubbing Johnny's ankle with the toe of his soft court shoe, and leaning forward so that the light gleamed on his hair just right, and taking hold of Johnny's hands and forgetting to give them back when Johnny kind of needed them to eat with.

Johnny didn't want to be totally easy, so he held out nearly ten minutes before he called the prince by his given name, and at least an hour before he let the prince - Stéphane - 'pick up where they were interrupted' and kiss him, and at least a week before he stopped pretending he was ever going to go back home to Frank and Evan and Paris and had his meagre belongings brought to the palace. He was particularly proud of that last achievement, because it was really, really hard to deny Stéphane anything when he wheedled at you and rubbed his nose against your cheek, and somehow even harder when he clapped his hands and just assumed you were going to do his bidding.

And they lived happily ever after, and had Paris to tea quite often, and sometimes even Evan.


End file.
